History of UBI
1795 Thomas Paine was talking about a dividend for society. Basically a minimum guaranteed income or basic income. Napoleon once said that man is entitled by birthright to a share of the earths produce sufficient to fill the needs of his existence.Nixon in the late sixties had proposed the access to basic income ('family assistance plan') in 1969 and it passed the house in 1970 and 1971 through the requirements to the point of passing the bill and it was shelved because the left wanted more basic income which had to first be resolved before the bill could be passed and the right felt that it would lead to divorce. This faded out and nothing became of it which had they persisted we would have reached a Universal Basic Income decades ago.
UBI - the metaphor:
What is it that you are not doing in life because you don't start each month with enough income to meet your basic needs? Because we are so busy worrying about how to acquire money to live there is so much that we are not doing.Basic income is about allowing people to focus on what they want to be doing and could be doing because it is not so much about the money as it is about what money enables people to do. UBI is designed to free humanity from the drudgery of all the systems that we have been dealing with.
Our Right to UBI
We as a society are entitled to the fruits that society has created and developed over time to build a stronger societal based infrastructure. Basic income allows us to develop our core as a human being without the stress of fighting for existence. It is the promised conclusion of the Industrial Revolution where jobs are lost and it recognizes that we are human family. Welfare is demeaning to the dignity whereas UBI lends us to think that this is OK.
This is based on a human dividend which is something that we have achieved as a civilization. It is not a handout but a right and everybody gets it. UBI has been implemented in Alaska as your right to a shared amount of the wealth. People have the right to share in the natural resources wealth as in natural resources like oil.
In the USA they have defined the Federal Poverty Line at $12000.00 per year.
The technological advancement of automation is taking away jobs and yet producing more than when we humans were doing the work. The level of income is far exceeding the production of the past and the people who were there from the inception of a basic business are left out in the cold without a means to support themselves while the owner of the companies are raking in all the financial benefits created by the workers who have been replaced by machines or better yet robots.
When you hear people like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg talk about this it seems like that's exactly what there are really thinking about. The billionaire's don't recognize what power there is with this redistribution of power that will take place with an unconditional basic income because if you have the power to say no then you are no longer forced to actually do the bidding of say the billionaire class and the owners of society. United Nations makes it very clear that it should be a fundamental observed right to have water and food and basic shelter and necessities.
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